Thought Theater

Red State, Blue State: White Knuckles? genre: Polispeak & Six Degrees of Speculation

Hal Varian of The New York Times reports on a recent paper by two Harvard economists about the significance of the red state, blue state divide. The full article can be found here. The following excerpts are highlights of the article.

According to some, the country is splitting into two opposing camps, with political divisions becoming more polarized and more spatially segregated than they have been in the past.

A recent working paper, "Myths and Realities of American Political Geography," by two Harvard University economists, Edward L. Glaeser and Bryce A. Ward, challenges this conventional wisdom. The paper can be downloaded from here.

They found that differences in political attitudes across states are nothing new: the Civil War and Roaring Twenties had much larger geographic variation in political views than we do today. Though dispersion in political attitudes has generally declined over the last 60 years, the last four years have brought a small uptick.

The most remarkable phenomenon is the rise of religion in politics. Thirty years ago, income was a better prediction of party affiliation than church attendance, but this is no longer true. Religion also played a big role in politics a century ago, so we may well be returning to the historical norm.

Cultural and religious attitudes play a big role in voting behavior. For example, the fraction of the population who agreed with the statement "AIDS is God's punishment for immoral sexual behavior" was highly correlated with whether the state was red or blue, according to surveys conducted by the Pew Research Center. The differences in religious attitudes between Vermont and Mississippi are huge.

Another peculiar connection is the strong correlation between religiosity and militarism. Respondents to Pew's survey who agree that "prayer is an important part of my daily life" also agree that the "best way to ensure peace is through military strength."

The genius of Republicans, beginning with Ronald Reagan and continuing with Karl Rove, was to bring the religious vote into their party, forming a winning coalition of Main Street businessmen, the very wealthy and evangelical Christians. Strange bedfellows, to be sure, but they win elections.

According to their theory, direct appeals to voters on issues like abortion are tricky, because strong positions inspire groups on both sides of the issue, who then cancel each other out in votes. The trick is to send "coded messages" to different groups of voters. Strong opponents of abortion, for example, may react positively to certain religious allusions that appear innocuous to mainstream voters.

The Economist magazine characterizes American politics as a contest between the incompetence of Republicans and the incoherence of the Democrats. But there is a reason for the Democrats' incoherence: they are feverishly trying to assemble their own collection of strange bedfellows, and no one quite knows what it is.

I find the following conclusion particularly interesting as it is consistent with my concerns that in the attempt to assuage the extremes, the middle is neglected. I've always been convinced that the party that can strike the right tone with reasonable Americans in the middle will win elections. While many politicians garner criticism from vocal members on either extreme when moving towards the center, I'm inclined to think politicians ought to court the center first...and then pick off voters from the extremes.

The obstacles to this approach are the caucus and primary systems where participation is typically skewed to the extremes. At the same time, I think it goes a long way towards explaining the typically low voter turnout seen in this country. The middle becomes necessarily neglected until the general election and by that time they are disenchanted with the rhetoric from both sides.

Ultimately, both parties face the same challenge: how to keep the support of their cultural and political extremists without giving them so much power that they alienate the middle-of-the-road voters.